Formation of the Meaning of Words

Linguist Dr. Doping speaks about misuse of words, poly-coded hypertext and household lexicography. How children perceive the word? How context influences the formation of values of unknown words? Do all meanings of the word should be recorded in the dictionary?

When we someone makes a remark: "You are wrong to have used a particular word," - and what is the wrong use of words? How a principle, we can talk about? The first thing that comes to mind - let's look at the dictionary. But do we always help in this dictionary?

My students, unfortunately, very often provided me absolutely fantastic examples. One student wrote in the book, looked like the door to the dance studio, where she once worked: "The door to the studio was located just above the facade of the building, so the threshold was done in three steps." Naturally, I asked her venomous question: "where there was a door on the roof, or maybe in the sky? How could all this happen "And the young lady gives me absolutely wonderful answer?" Well, this is called the bottom rim of the building, I forgot, "That is, she meant the foundation. Moreover, let's think about it: for her foundation - it is not load-bearing structure on which the house stands, and "rim at the bottom of the building." In the native language of the girl, adult girl, confuses words with the letter "f", because they are both parts of the architectural structure. It is a strange situation. How could all turn out?

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To answer this question, it is useful to think about how all forms of the word in our minds. Let's look first at a small child. When he still did not really know how to say it, as we were told in our beloved children's book, "Mary Poppins", speaks its own language. If you remember, in childhood twins speak their language. Not just twins, any child speaks its own language.

My son, when he was about two years old, called the horse "chop-chop-chop" and dog "wawa". And here we go with him in the yard and see a huge dog. He says, "Mom, chop-chop-chop!" "No, - I say. - This is not a horse, it's a dog - wawa ". "Nah," - indignantly said my son. How can this happen? Means for him cat, dog, horse differed only one sign - in size. Suddenly he is faced with the fact that big as a horse, as it seems (he saw the pony), the dog. It does not happen. And I told him: "Look, please, on the feet, it does not have hooves, claws her, she knocks on the asphalt claws, rather than hooves." And he looked with doubt on this "horse".

Why is this happening? It turns out that the child initially from something imitating us perceives that the object or class of objects that - with time he understands it - is so called something. But he attributes to this class of objects has not yet been assigned, rather, they are assigned, but some of his. Gradually, communicating with adults, a child understands what attributes have this or that object. And this is quite a remarkable property, which appears much earlier than any formed whatsoever Dictionary.

Remarkably Alexander Zalevskaya famous psycholinguist and psychologist, said that the word that we learn in childhood, is a living poly-coded hypertext. That is, we take the word with its sound, associations, which it calls us. For example, the tree may be associated in our minds with the smell of tangerines on a holiday, with broken toys, a punishment for the broken toys - you never know what else, everyone has their own association.

And if we learn the word as a living poly-coded hypertext, then no difficulty will arise.

Gradually, we adjust all the necessary signs and come to the fact that there is in the language.

Another thing, if we learn the word in some other way. How? We are with you in our modern world is surrounded by a huge number of words, the values of which we do not even know that we can not guess what the word means. On television, we hear a huge number of unfamiliar words, sometimes not even accurately perceive them by ear, play properly. And when these students start to write unfamiliar words, they are doing absolutely fantastic error. Where does the value of this word here?

Absolutely wonderful logician, mathematician Vladimir Uspensky in the article, I think, 1978 or the 1980 - it is an old article - considered rem association of the word "authority". Abstract, but the most common associations: hard, hard, warm. Where did they come from? He absolutely wonderful mathematical model that we hear the words in different contexts and these contexts calculate that could mean we unfamiliar word. But there are two conditions are necessary. The first condition - that we have a lot of different contexts. The second condition is that the right word, we met often enough, then we will gradually derive its.

But what would happen if, say, the word will meet often enough or in enough variety of contexts as often happens, when we hear the word on television. Any word "impeachment", say: "Communist faction to impeach the president or initiated impeachment proceedings", "President Barack Obama threatened impeachment if the Democrats lose the election next year." How do we need to learn that the impeachment - a special legal procedure? The most that we can hear from these contexts, it is something like resignation, some censure the president can be, but the exact meaning of the word, we do not know.

Here we need to look in the dictionary. Look in the dictionary to guess, unfortunately, we do not always know how we laziness. Although we now have opportunities to do much more than before. Internet replaces the huge number of dictionaries, just look at Gramota.ru portal, which presents many serious dictionaries, any word will be revealed to you. Unfortunately, we do not always.

The result is that we have an approximate value of words. My lady, of course, have heard the word "threshold", but she could hear: "We say good-bye to you at the threshold", "She met him on the threshold of the house," maybe "He stumbled over the high threshold." She did not come to mind that the threshold - it strap down in the doorway. High threshold was placed in the old huts, so as not to muzzle, to evil spirits did not pass, could not sweep over the threshold of some things. She just did not know. It is not built with his father or grandfather of some house. And the student unconsciously formed such a strange system, it has a huge bag of words that indicate the details of the house, she does not know the difference between the facade of the foundation. And this often happens with all of us.

The word "facade", by the way, at one time meant only the front part of the house. How is it that now the facade and indicates the side of the house, and even the back of the house? In fact, he acted the same mechanism: someone first used the word "facade", knowing that it means in French - it is associated with the word face ( "face"). Then people thought, there is a beautiful name "facade" to the front of the house, and how to name the side? Let there be side facade, let it be the rear facade. And it turned what is now recorded in the major dictionaries. Exactly the way we use the word "façade": we have the side facade and rear facade, that sounds strange for a man who studied French.

Here we find the root of a word change. But whether every dictionary should always make these changes in the text? Lexicographers know that it is carried out not always. Some meaning might be, then will go to the language, and some will disappear without a trace.